Good riddance

Karl Rove is leaving the Bush White House the end of the month. Finally.

He’s been called any number of names—among those without expletives are “evil genius”, “Bush’s Machiavelli”, “Voldemort”, “un-indicted co-conspirator” and “Bush’s brain”.

Certainly a name that the left and the right can both agree on is the one Bush used to describe him: “The Architect”. Rove was responsible for the strategies that got and kept Bush in power, and laid the groundwork for an unprecedented concentration of power in the Executive Branch.

For Rove, there was no tactic too low, nothing too despicable to be beyond contemplation or use. He managed to steer Bush toward election in 2004 (because it’s impossible to be re-elected to an office you were never elected to…), and did so by launching the most vile and contemptible scaremongering, scapegoating and focus-shifting I’ve ever seen.

He’s been mentioned again and again and again as being at the centre of any number of scandals in the Bush White House but, like Cheney, he’s managed to emerge without a scratch. Whatever else, that’s a mark either of sheer genius or luck.

So, I’m not the least bit sorry to see him go. That’s one less self-loathing, bigoted opportunistic Bushista in the White house. With 525 days to go, the doors to the White House are likely to swing wildly as staffers get out while they can—the proverbial rats deserting a sinking ship, except that rats everywhere would be insulted to be compared with Karl Rove.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.